Cable briefs

Press, 21 January 1984, Page 8

Cable briefs

Bomb suspects Police hunting guerrillas who killed six people with a pre-Christmas car-bomb outside the Harrods department store in London have arrested an Irish couple in a small seaside resort in north Wales. Scotland Yard said anti-teprorist officers and local police had arrested a husband and wife in Abergele and were holding them for questioning under the Prevention of Terrorism Act Under the act suspects maybe held for questioning for* up to seven days. The Irish Republican Army planted a car-bomb in a crowded street-outside Harrods a week before Christmas. The blast killed six people.—London. Sex club fires A shadowy neo-Nazi group which had claimed responsibility for various murders in Italy said it also started sex club fires in Amsterdam and Munich which killed 13 people, the Italian news agency. Ansa said. A letter sent to it from northern Italy bore marks of previous letters claiming responsibility for a string of gory killings in northern Italy over the last six years. The letter said the group “Ludwig” had set fire to the Amsterdam club, Casa-Rosso, where 13 people were killed and more than 20 injured on December 17. It also claimed reponsibility for a fire in the Liverpool sex and dance club in Munich on January 8 which seriously hurt seven people.—Milan. Detention powers Nigeria’s new military Government has given itself the power to hold suspects for up to three months without charge and has announced that “about 462” officials of the deposed civilian Government are under arrest. In a tightening of control over Africa’s most populous nation, the Supreme Military Council headed by Major-General Muhammad Buhari said it had approved a decree allowing the detention without formal charge of those suspected of endangering “State security” or committing “economic crimes.” The decree did not spell out what constituted those crimes. But it empowered the Chief-of-Staff, Major-Gen-eral Ibrahim Babangida, to review the cases of those detained since the military coup and order their release or another three months detention.—Lagos.